In keeping with IPA tradition, the knowledge produced in this thesis comes more from subjectivity in the interpretation of the data than a check on the objectivity of such interpretation (Smith et al., 2009). Thus, the key to evaluating the quality of the research is not the generalizability of the findings, but rather whether
knowledge is established by the shared understanding and negotiation of meaning between the researcher and participants (Yardley, 2000). In particular, for this thesis it is appropriate to create an extensive grounding in the participants’ and researcher’s interpretations, since the thesis does not depend on a theoretical framework. Therefore, the research is sensitive to the interpretation created by the participants and takes the accounts of participants at face value.
In IPA research, peer review is an acceptable form of cross-validation and is considered a desirable way of checking and improving the validity and audit of work (Smith et al., 2009). Reid et al. (2005) acknowledge that analysis conducted by more than one researcher is another form of ‘triangulation’, and in IPA
researches it can take different forms during the data analysis. Usually a second researcher reviews and discusses the first’s analysis (Larkin & Griffiths, 2004; Rostill-Brookes et al., 2011), but another form is peer coding in which co-
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researchers conduct independent analysis and produce a final agreed classification through discussion (Abbey & Dallos, 2004; Dancyger, Smith, Jacobs, Wallace, & Michie, 2010). The involvement of multiple researchers in the analysis of the data may be an explicit requirement for increasing the trustworthiness of the data and the breadth of the interpretative process, specifically when only one researcher conducts the research (Yardley, 2000). In case of Boland’s (2011) thesis, the trustworthiness of the research findings was enriched through an independent audit by one supervisor and the joint coding of selected sections of the interview transcripts by another. A comparative coding by supervisors for selected rich narratives also helped Watts ("A Family Affair," 2006) ensure his emerging themes showed a level of transparency and coherence.
Once I completed the analysis of all participants’ transcripts and had an early version of the master list of themes, my chief supervisor verified my data analysis. My supervisor who had taken her partner to academic conferences read through the transcripts and analysed them independently from me. Smith et al. (2009) argue that peers can only verify the quality of a study in terms of coherence and credibility, not in terms of the researcher’s subjective interpretation. Also peers do not have to represent the ‘truth’ or necessarily to reach a consensus. When my supervisor completed her work, we discussed our interpretations. We found nearly the same interpretations in terms of representing commonalities across the
participants’ accounts and accommodating the variations within the data set. In other words, a shared meaning between me and my supervisor was created and offered the basis for articulating and interpreting the accompanying spouses’ experience (Hein & Austin, 2001). Thus, the common emerging themes from the data were set.
This verification gave me confidence in a clear plan of how and what to highlight as key themes. During this process, the early version of the master list of themes (Table 7, page 114) was articulated and revised. The final version of the list of themes is presented in Chapter Four Findings. The credibility of the analytic process and the results of this research have been strengthened by the
documentation of the stages of analysis and the discussion between me and my supervisor about the interpretation of the data (Smith, 2004; Yardley, 2000).
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Yardley (2000) demonstrates that the coherence of research is informed by the well-elucidated perspective of participants, especially where the research offers no predictions or preconceptions. Here, the research adopted an inductive approach to data analysis to explore each accompanying spouses’ perspective of conference travel experience. It aligns with hermeneutic philosophy and an idiographic approach of IPA as accompanying spouses have a privilege of interpreting their own experiences. It required a participant’s account in concrete and explicit detail. Participants verifying their own experience was considered a form of member validation in what Bygstad and Munkvold (2007) refer to as, “the common-sense wisdom of asking the source of information to verify that it is exact and complete” (p. 243b). An interpretive case study by Bygstad and Munkvold (2007)
empirically showed that member validation plays a significant role in the constructing of a case and increasing its validity. During the interviews, I also tried to achieve stability within my interpretation of what participants said through the clarification process with each participant. I constantly checked the accuracy of my understanding with questions such as, ‘My understanding is that you don’t seem to care about your status at the conference, is that right?’ Furthermore, I conducted the second phase interview with accompanying spouses to check my understanding of each participant’s description within the context of her/his life world. This process of member validation helped to ensure the trustworthiness of the data (Abbey & Dallos, 2004).
Finally, the transferability of data also improved the present research’s quality (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). In this thesis, I tried to present ‘thick’ descriptions illustrating the axiomatic representation, various experience and contextual situatedness of the data (Lincoln & Guba, 1985; McCormick, 1996). As such, this description aims to share with the reader about what I and participants think, thus, allowing the reader to bring her/his own tacit knowledge to an understanding of the participants’ experience (McCormick, 1996). Smith et al (2009) also explain that through connecting the findings to the extant tourism literature, the researcher can shed light on the existing research for the reader. Readers can, in turn,
continue this process of theoretical transferability as they examine the research from the perspective of their own experiential knowledge base, and begin to think of the implications for their own work (Smith et al., 2009).
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